SLIT TRENCH

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5286, 24 December 1946, Page 7

SLIT TRENCH

To-morrqw is Christmas Day — the seventh Christmas Day since war was declared in 1939. For th« majority of men who served overseas in th Force's during those years eaeh and every Christmas Day during those years should bring back memories of places widely apart on the face of the map— but how's your memory? It should be easy enough to recalfsuch a day as Christmas Day one would think, but .when one tries, it isn't quite so easy. We have reviewed here very briefly the career of the 1st N.Z.E.F. through five and of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. through six Christmas Days of wa?. We are sorry we haven t space to give a review of all New Zealand servicemen's Yuletides in all parts of the world.

Main Body, 1914 "We'll t>e back by Christmas," they called from the decks of the troopships in Wellington. Mothers and wives hoped; younger brothers feared, they might be right, but before the red-stripers' remi.ant at last returned, we had wandered over the face of the earth. The pointed hat of the infantry and the sloueh hat of the Desert Brigade were seen in Hel- | iopolis, Hulil and Hazebrouck, Lone I Pine and London, Cairo, Colog-ne and 1 Cristobal. By the beginning of December, 1914, New Zealanders began to arrive in Egypt and the Main Body and First and Second Reinforcements had Plum Duff, Pilsener and Sir Thomas Mackenzie, N. Z. High Commissioner in London, for their first Christmas. In the meantime, the Advance Force had established itself in Apia, wjhere some aubsequent jollification cost the participants therein a hardlyearned 30 bob, by which title the C.O. was ever afterwards known. The next Christmas for the great majority of the Anzacs who were still on Gallipoli at the evacuation was spent at sea. A bitter Christmas, that; although the troopships' cooks did their best to remove the taste of disillusionment and despair. More had happened to New Zealand in the intervening 365 days than in the previous 75 years. Days in France and Germany Let us follow the fellows to France. On December 23, 1916, the 2nd Brigade at Estaires had relieved the 1st Brigade in the Coidonnierie sector, but the bitter cold of that Christmas, then said to have been the worst for 40 years, did not assist the festivities. The 1st found that the 2nd had provided itself so well with the where^ withal for a feast that there was no great surplus of rouge ou blance. Besides, those benighted gunners 'kept up a strafe till midnight, and theie was momentary expectation of retaliation, but the Jerries cunningly reserved that for New Year's Day.

How different a s?t-up from that of j Christmas two years before in the British sector, when the first 1'00,D00 fraternised with the Germans in no j man's land. Much had happened in those two years to England also. In 1917 the Diggers were crouched mostly about the area between the J trenches and Dickebusch in the Ypres salient. The companies were still only at half strength after Passchendaele and there was. a hell of a lot of hard work and constant danger for all ranks. Nevertheless, the Divisional I Entertainment 'Company, to give the Kiwis their correet Arrny title, turned on a Christmas pantomine that was 1 a huge success. The "extras" on Xmas Day were not wonderful, exI cepting for those in hospital, but l thei'e was ar issue of gumboots in [lieu of the olxi-style stocking. The last war-time Christmas for the Old Diggers was on German soil, so in three years we^had burned full cycle. Five days before, the bulk ^ of the infantry 'had crossed the Rhine J but the artillery did noc turn up until j Boxing Day. Hoadquarters of'the Division was at Deverkusen, the 1st Brigade at Leichlingen; the 2nd at Mulheim and the 3rd, at Bensherg. No doubt some of the Kiwis can pick up these places. In the Desef t For the Mounted Brigade, after it became part of the Aufetralian and New Zealand 1 Mounted Division, I)ecember 25, 1916 was spent at E1 Arish. There v/as no firewood for miles around, so what could a poor trooper .do to cook his Christmas pud? The ITLore enterprising did not look for the last place where the caravan had rested; they collected five miles of telephones poles! The year il917 saw the Mounteds at or on the way to A'shod from Ayun Kara. Condations were terrible; the desert had become a morass and the transport took 24 hours to cover , 12 mi-les. However, there was a light heart as well as a light knapsack among the troops, for- just a fortmght

before, Allenby had walked into Jerusalem. "The Bull" walked into the Holy City, although his escort rode • be'hind him. A little' of that spirit today would help in the same place and the same people. That last 'Christmas, 1918, the Brigade was on its way back to Egypt and home, the day itself being spent leisurely at Rafa. Carry on, Kiwi! 'Yessir," said I Saluting Smartly Only a few Kiwis will recall the first war-time Christmas with service associations — the Hoary First Eehellon. Christmas Day was the hub of final leave — and what a final leave. Stove pipe trousers and multi-hued tunics and the new issue of drill that badly wanted drilling' Tearful farewells, handshakes, good luck, good luck — that was Christmas, 1939. The Glamour Boys Had It Christmas Day, 1'940 §aw quite a change in the seene. By this time the 2nd Echelon (The Glamour Boys) and the 3rd (just plain third) had sailed from New Zealand. The Glamour Boys were doing it not so easy in Very Merry England and the thirds' spent their Christmas sampling the aesthetic pleasures of Cairo and particularly t'he area bordered by Shepheard's Hotel on one side and Ezbekiah Gardens oi. the other. The Hoary First were spendi'ng a slightly more celi'bate, less exciting . Christmas watching the wells at Maaten Bagush and; making sure that the Itie bombers didn't see them. They also entertained a few mem'bers of the British Tank Corps, Dunkirk evacuees, who insisted on showing their appreciation by stripping off umpteen rounds of .38 ammo int$ the night. Between this Christmas and the f ollowing Christmas the narrator was captured by some friendly Germans on Crete, but after chasing all over Rotorua, has managed to get a,t least two sets of answers that tally and sets them forth below. The second half of 1941 was what might be termed the "end of the beginning" as far as the Div. was concerned. 'In Greece, Crete and in the Desert, the Kiwis had ceased to be toy soldiers and could be termed veterans (horrible American name for soldier who has seen shot fired in anger.)

Tobrulk — Tripoli Christmas, 1941, saw them sitting around Tobruk keeping the corridor open after their link up with the garrison at Ed Duda in Novembei. Just a year later the Division was several hundred 'miles to the west almost right on the border of Tripoli. During the year the tide had turned twice. The heartrending battle of Alamein was behind and in front lay the formidable barrier of the Mareth Line. In the meantime, it was a good •Christmas — the Divisiqn had acquitted itself well and now had something to show beside battle scars. The Christmas Days of 1942 and 1943, were also to be separated by many miles of land and sea. During the year, the Division set ,f oot on The •Continent after helping in the defeat of Rommel in the desert, They landed in Italy in October and Christmas Day found them stuck in the mud on the outskirts of Orsogna and Ortona. They say Boh Sempie's bulldozers lcame right into thefir ow'n there. Christmas Day, 1944 the last battle Yuletide for the lads in the ■Mediterranean area. The year ha^l seen one of the bloodiest battles of the war at Montte Cassino and the breaking of the Gustav Line. Befoie them lay the Gothic Line, the enemy defences covering the Po-Valley and the Lombardy Plains, Faenza, the Senio^ River, the Santerno, billaro the Arno and the Po and Trieste. The Pacific and All No, we haven't forgotten the boys of the Third Division, who spent some pretty miserable Christmas Days in the Pacific. Nor have we forgotten, the Brylcream Boys who winged their way over ei emy territory on Christmas Day and dropped Fat'her Hitler some nice craclcers to distribute to his children. Nor have we forgotten^ the boys in blue or those unsung heroes m the Merchant Navy. Nor the Wrens, npr the* WaacSj nor the Home Guard, nor anv of the thpusands who did just as important a job as the ■ bloke in the front line — and a darned sight more monotonous at times. We 'haven't forgotten them but we can't go through all the Christmasses all over the world during those years. Judging by the trouble that we ve had in sorting out one division s YuletideS it would* take ras all year. If we get .torn in bright and early we might be able to get something jacked up by next Christmas In the meantime— a Merry Christmas, bonne Noel,.gute Weinacht, kweis whatever-it-is and , all the rest o i •